Ever wondered what’s behind the secret language website developers speak? Or wanted to know exactly why your developer might try to charge you $500 each time your website content needs a tiny change? Or even just why your beautiful website doesn’t get as many visitors as you’d hoped? Well that’s why we’re about to bust some myths of web development and show you why most web “experts” don’t want you to know all this! Myth Busted:
“Flash websites are the best; they look so good, and everyone loves them!”
A Flash website is an animated website that is created using Macromedia/Adobe Flash software. You’ve probably seen those silly “splash” pages that roll animation or play music and then offer you “SKIP INTRO”… Well, that’s Flash. Why on earth would you want to make your customers sit there and wait for a stupid animation to play before they’re allowed to view the content on your website? It’s like having your shop-front door locked when you’re open for business and making customers stand there and listen to you sing a company jingle before you let them in. Why Flash Sucks!:
- Your website won’t load on an iPad or iPhone.
- The website load time can be long and frustrating – meaning you WILL lose visitors.
- Flash breaks Search Engine website previews.
- Some users disable Flash to avoid Flash based advertising – therefore your Flash website won’t load at all for some users, even on standard computers.
- Information embedded in Flash is often invisible to search engines like Google. Because everything on the screen is rendered as an image, not text, your content won’t get found by important prospects, which makes it impractical and sometimes cost prohibitive to drive traffic to your site.
Myth Busted:
“Only the Web Developer should be able to make changes to your website.”
Think about it… if your web developer puts you in control, you are able to make any changes to the website yourself. That means they can’t charge you hundreds or thousands of dollars for every little change, so they’d be doing themselves out of business. But by restricting your access, your web developer can charge you whatever they want and get back to on their own schedule, basically holding you to ransom – and what can you do about it? In a lot of cases, the changes you request over time may cost more than the initial cost of your website. An unfortunate client of ours was once charged more than $11,000 by their web developer over a two year period just for changes. Yikes! You don’t need to learn a programming language if you want to change things yourself. There are systems out there that are designed to enable you to change and maintain your own website, without knowledge of any web programming languages. They’re called Content Management Systems (CMS) and they provide you with a simple, non-technical way of updating your content. Make sure that you – the owner – maintain complete control of your website! Request a CMS and you’ll save yourself thousands of dollars, be able to serve your customers better and adapt quickly to ever-changing markets through what should be a major communication channel for your business. Myth Busted:
“Yeah, your website will grow with your business… and so will your bills!”
When you embark on developing your website, make sure you consider what limitations your web developer places on you for future growth. You need to know that your website can grow as your business changes. In other words, if you don’t require an online shop right now, but you might next year, ask how easy it’s going to be to add it to your website later, and how much it will cost. If you’re thinking about sending newsletters via your website, does the site have a system that can actually do this or will you have to use a separate paid software and double-handle all your email contacts? And what if you want a blog, a calendar of events or a news section – can that all be included in your website or do you need to pay loads more just to set it up? A lot of developers out there will have sneaky hidden fees, like one we found that charges $44 for each extra page, and if you want a News, FAQs or Testimonial page, you have to pay another $10 per month for EACH — so that’s $30 extra every month for three extra basic page types! It’s robbery! What you don’t want to have happen is that the features and functionality your website needs prove impossible for your website developer to deliver, which would leave you with only one alternative… an entirely new website built from scratch. Myth Busted:
“That will be $10,000 thank you!”
Due to the way the web industry is, there seems to be another misconception that you must spend tons of money to get a decent website. Granted, there are websites out there that are worth every penny their owners have invested in them, but they are for businesses that turn over millions of dollars and actually have a hefty annual marketing budget to throw at it. The good news is you can still get a great looking, money-making website with a lot less. First things first, plan ahead! Plan your website right from the outset and you’ll save thousands of dollars. Research what goes into creating a great website strategy and start making notes. Developers charge thousands for this, but with a bit of hard work, you can do this yourself and save big bucks. You’ll do a much better job too because you know your business and your customers better than any web developer ever will. When you plan to develop your website, the dollars start to add up when the time it takes to develop the more ‘custom’ aspects of your website starts to creep up. The longer it takes, the more it costs. There are so many shonky web developers out there today and with the industry jargon the way it is, it is confusing to make an easy comparison. Just remember, a lot of the cost is in the ‘custom’ functionality of web development, so weigh up whether it’s worth it and go from there.
So, has that got you thinking about web development? I sure hope so.
Yes, having a great website requires some serious leg work in preparation, and you’ve got to know what questions to ask your developer, but other than that, it really is easy! Websites are for everyone and it should be just as easy for you to understand your website and have control over it as it is for your customers to visit the site. And now that the “myths” of web development have been busted, get out there and ask for what you really want and make sure you’re getting the best possible long term results from your website.
